


Dwimordene's 2009 birthday drabbles

by Dwimordene



Category: The Lord of the Rings - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: General, Multi-Age
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-26
Updated: 2015-06-26
Packaged: 2018-04-06 08:27:15
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 2,264
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4214938
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Dwimordene/pseuds/Dwimordene
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>NOTE: These are drabbles written by other authors as birthday fics. I don't want to delete because I don't know if any of them have a copy, but I also know I'll probably be offline for another year or more. Anyone who wants to claim their drabbles, please do so and just copy them to your account.</p><p>This year, I asked for drabbles about either the resistance in Númenor (Anárion of special interest, but anyone you please, really), or else the turning point that never (quite) was. The latter need not be followed up and progress to an AU, but it could go that route if you so desired. Just find a turning point in the story that wasn't exploited and exploit it fictionally.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Defiance by Marta

**Author's Note:**

> Note from the HASA Transition Team: This story was originally archived at [HASA](http://fanlore.org/wiki/Henneth_Ann%C3%BBn_Story_Archive), which closed in February 2015. To preserve the archive, we began manually importing its works to the AO3 as an Open Doors-approved project in February 2015. We posted announcements about the move, but may not have reached everyone. If you are (or know) this author, please contact The HASA Transition Team using the e-mail address on the [HASA collection profile](http://archiveofourown.org/collections/hasa/profile).

The Valar spoke long – about choice, and will, and _freedom_ – until Máhanaxar was full of their idle talk. It grated across Ulmo's hearing like a clanging cymbal, but he could not leave. He owed it to those that would die, to at least endure the talk. The others might tell themselves that they debated philosophy's niceties, whether it would make Pharazôn's choice null to shield him from the consequences; all that was true, but it did not tell the full tale. His brothers and sisters talked of genocide, whether they knew it or not.  
  
He had heard the water's melodies, the One's Song, as clear as it came in Arda Marred; he at least could not be fooled.  
  
Ulmo knew the people, aye, knew the ships and other treasures that would be lost beneath his water when the One's waves were unleashed; but he also knew of other beings that the Others had forgotten. What of the minnows that lived in the quiet pools, and the rams that climbed Meneltarma? And the stones – what of them? They had stood against the waves for centuries, always resisting the never-altering rhythm, changed but never subdued. Would _their_ choice now be washed aside in favor of the speaking ones? Úinen might restrain Ossë's mischief in small matters, but neither of them could stand against the One's wrath.  
  
And that was the crux of it, really. Ulmo might resist, but even he could not prevail; and if he saved some small remnant, it would be through defiance. He was at root a Child of the One; he had heard too much of the Song, too often, to be otherwise.  
  
Still, he would not restrain his servants from doing what they could – and if their waves pushed some few ships out of harm's way, well, that was their affair.


	2. Defiance by Marta

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This year, I asked for drabbles about either the resistance in Nmenor (Anrion of special interest, but anyone you please, really), or else the turning point that never (quite) was. The latter need not be followed up and progress to an AU, but it could go that route if you so desired. Just find a turning point in the story that wasn't exploited and exploit it fictionally.

**All Roads Lead To Rome**  
  
 **It takes a village**  
  
"I hear our liege's favorite advisor _'Stirs War, Dooms Elenna,'_ " whispered Arandar, offering him a glass.  
  
Stunned at hearing his writing quoted, Anarion hesitated. Arandar knew! Never had he reason to mistrust Isildur's friend, but perilous times made mistakes costly.  
  
Still, he drank. "I could not know."  
  
Arandar glanced meaningfully at Anarion's fingernails. "Unless you have turned scholar, I would hide those ink-stains." Leaning closer, "I can help with this... _compilation of family history._ Hard work. Yes?"  
  
"And stain your fingers?"  
  
"Better my fingers than my conscience."  
  
Anarion understood that. "Tomorrow. Fish market."  
  
"We _fish_?"  
  
"Aye. For evil and darkness."  
  
***  
  
 **Business is Business**  
  
Arandar folded the leaflets from the final parchment. From there, it was to the _distributors_ , thence to whatever hands would hold them. Hands he could never recognize. Not yet. Anarion was very particular about that.  
  
"You sure not even your brother knows of your midnight rendezvous?"  
  
Anarion smiled. "I let him think what he will. Being Isildur, he probably knows it is no woman."  
  
"People underestimate you."  
  
"I like it that way; 'tis vital for my line of work."  
  
"You even manage truthfulness, for you _do_ trade."  
  
"Information. Best trade there is."  
  
"One day might be your head."  
  
"Not yet."  
  
***  
  
 **The apple falls not far from the tree**  
  
"Let us forget," Amandil said, "that I am the lord of Andunie and that you are fourth in line to succeed me. Tell me, Anarion: have you seen this parchment before?"  
  
Confronted by his own handwriting, he could not do much more than deflect attention.  
  
"You would lose deniability should I answer."  
  
"But as your grandfather, I am bound only to you."  
  
 _True, yet--_  
  
"These things," pointing to the page, "become dangerous the more people know of them."  
  
"More reason to keep my part quiet, son."  
  
"Part?"  
  
"Whence, did you suppose, came the facts you write?"  
  
"A creditable source!"  
  
"Exactly."  
  
***  
  
 **'Tis all Greek**  
  
"Lady P. sends greetings to her kinsman."  
  
Amandil took the parchment offered and shoved it under his shirt. Miriel risked much in communicating with him, but he could not-- would not-- deny her the right to be useful in whatever way was available now. Doomed they were; at least die knowing that one fought whilst living.  
  
"Tell P. that R. has received and will pass it from competent to competent hands."  
  
The woman smiled. "Never had my old hands received such praise."  
  
"Due time. Now let us be off." Time to transcribe and burn Miriel's note. Thence, to his contact.  
  
***  
  
 **Never put off 'til tomorrow...**  
  
"Issilome thanks your wife for the books," Amandil said, a lingering glance at the second, blue binding. "As do I. Magnificent recipes."  
  
"Glad to be of service! Though only a messenger, one does what one can."  
  
"Have her sample these and pass them on. They are too good not to taste."  
  
Watching Omardil walk away with Miriel's news in tow, Amandil wondered how many turns they would take until they saw print, or whether the effort was worth it. Until he saw Elendur playing on the surf.  
  
If some future could be salvaged, he would do what he could, today.  
  
***  
  
 **To Caesar what is Caesar's**  
  
"Hefty tome, this week!"  
  
Anarion's eyes widened, almost imperceptibly, at the implied meaning, as Garathil handed him a book. What was it today...? _A Sailor's Account of His Trade._ He smiled, kept up the pretense. "Will this help my project?"  
  
"Undoubtedly!" replied the librarian. "Your ancestors have always been mariners. Do let me see the draft once finished."  
  
Anarion left to read about family history (actually, to digest and present the information received. Let no one be in the dark! _Annatar_ would destroy them if brave people did not do their part to expose him.)  
  
 _Let me honor their efforts._  
  
***  
  
 **Who risks not, gains not**  
  
Emeldil looked around as he slipped through the flap to find the tunnel to find the outing to find the steps to find the alley that led to the old playhouse where he would find the latest batch of news to distribute amongst the Faithful. No one knew who wrote them. It mattered not. Those news were the one thing holding them together, strong against the lovers of darkness. He would do anything to deliver them to those who awaited, and to protect their author.  
  
Any sacrifice would be worth it for such a cause.  
  
"Valar, help us hold on."  
  
***  
  
 **Killing two birds with one stone's throw**  
  
 _'...disturbing phenomena linked, as shown, to darkness-worship upon Meneltarma. In our eagerness to remain aloof from the damnable atrocities perpetrated there, we have allowed A. to please himself. Our duty, now, remains...'_  
  
Elenwe struggled to quell the butterflies Anarion always provoked. Pride for his daring; fear for his risk. He could never know she knew it was him writing what gave such hope to the Faithful, nor that she helped pass it along; he would beg her not to endanger herself, but should he court danger alone?  
  
Never.  
  
Now, her seamstress would appreciate a new order of work. And news.  
  
***  
  
 **The end of all things**  
  
Husband and wife read together, hearts heavy, of the growing unrest, corruption, and desecration around them.  
  
"Whence does it lead?" she asked, plying her needle furiously over her new order.  
  
"To doomsday."  
  
"Valar!"  
  
"Hush!" Then, softly, taking her hand, "all we can do is remain faithful and hope that the-- that the Valar will take pity on us. At least, through these," brandishing the parchment, "we are not blind, nor complacent."  
  
"Nor alone."  
  
"No. And, when the time comes to stand together, we will know there are others we can trust."  
  
"When will it be?"  
  
"'Tis certain we will know."


	3. Nothing Gold Can Stay? by Starlight

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This year, I asked for drabbles about either the resistance in Nmenor (Anrion of special interest, but anyone you please, really), or else the turning point that never (quite) was. The latter need not be followed up and progress to an AU, but it could go that route if you so desired. Just find a turning point in the story that wasn't exploited and exploit it fictionally.

**Nothing Gold Can Stay?**  
  
 _"Nature's first green is gold,_  
Her hardest hue to hold.  
Her early leaf's a flower;  
But only so an hour.  
Then leaf subsides to leaf.  
So Eden sank to grief,  
So dawn goes down to day.  
Nothing gold can stay."  
  
(Nothing Gold Can Stay, Robert Frost)  
  
  
He had seen it in his mind's eye: his wife, her beauty heightened by the assurance of absolute power; her confidence unshaken through the forgetting of the past in utter certainty of the future; her skills perfected by the melding of her soul with that of another-- a stranger, not himself; her mind finally satisfied with the knowledge of all she had always pursued.  
  
And himself, a thrall-- enthralled anew by her beauty, self-assurance, charm, kindness, wit-- until it all shattered in a heap of unfulfilled longings and promises lost to fear, consumed in the fire of greed and pride.  
  
***  
  
Power may not always be harmful.  
  
True, he had conceded, for power wielded to help, to bless, was honorable and noble.  
  
True, she had conceded. For not all beings grow at one rate; love, skill, patience are needed to help some reach full stature.  
  
True, he had conceded. But, who decides who needs help? What is each being's full stature?  
  
There all debate ended.  
  
Their union had brought them completeness, one supplying where the other lacked; her keenness refining his notions, his steadfastness tempering her fire. Her choice would force choice upon him... had he the will to make it?  
  
***  
  
His knowledge of her fea told him, unmistakably, that _the_ test had come. He had awoken with a start, the strings of their bond tugging fiercely every which way, pulling him, twisting him, binding him tighter.  
  
"Hold on, Love," he pleaded. _For, if you fall, my strength may not avail but to fall deeper with you._  
  
When she finally returns, he is waiting, grim-faced, frightened.  
  
"Who are you?" he asks through dry lips.  
  
She smiles, looks him in the eye.  
  
"Galadriel."  
  
As they embrace, relieved, grateful, he remembers it was not her beauty that first dazzled him, but her strength.  
  
  
 _"I pass the test... I will diminish, and go into the West, and remain Galadriel." (The Lord of the Rings, J. R. R. Tolkien)_  
  
 _"All things counter, original, spare, strange;_  
Whatever is fickle, freckled (who knows how?)  
With swift, slow; sweet, sour; adazzle, dim;  
He fathers-forth whose beauty is past change:  
Praise him."  
  
(Pied Beauty, Gerard Manley Hopkins)


	4. Forbidden Fruit

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This year, I asked for drabbles about either the resistance in Nmenor (Anrion of special interest, but anyone you please, really), or else the turning point that never (quite) was. The latter need not be followed up and progress to an AU, but it could go that route if you so desired. Just find a turning point in the story that wasn't exploited and exploit it fictionally.

  
  
  
 

Never as nimble as his brother, he moved as swiftly as he could.  If he should stumble in the dark and lose his burden, then his brother would have suffered fell wounds in vain, and hope would surely be lost.  Even now, their great house was being watched by the King's men.  Trudging through the fetid waist-high waters of the sewers under Romenna, Anárion fingered the pouch hung round his neck.  The pouch felt warm, perhaps by the sunlight caught in the stolen fruit it held.    _ Move _ .   _ Breathe _ .   _ Listen _ .   The Son of the Sun smiled, and walked on, without pursuit.  

** *** **

**** Never was the pale light of the morning more welcome to the man who was named for it.  Anárion shambled out of the tunnel, shivering and half-blind after the night spent walking in darkness.  He knew this land, having traveled the coast of the Hyarrostar years before.  Sun on his face, Anárion hastened to a hidden grove, deep in a wood of sea-spruce and gold-flowering _ laurinquë _ .  There, in the rich soil near a rippling stream, he dug a bed where the Tree of the Kings could be reborn.  

Anárion brought the Fruit of Nimloth out of the pouch into the warmth of the rising sun.  Anar's rays shone upon the soft golden fuzz coating the silvery fruit.  Silver for the moon, gold for the Sun; he thought, reminded of his brother.  No gold or silver plundered by Pharazôn could be worth more than this one fruit, Anarion thought.  May the false king and his devil Sauron choke on the fumes when they give Nimloth to the flames!

A dark red streak marred the fruit's perfection.  Isildur's blood!  Anárion considered wiping the stain away.  No.  "My brother bled to save thee," he said softly as he planted the fruit.  "Remember him!"

** *** **

**** Never had he thought, however much he loved trees, to spend the cool spring night huddled in his cloak beside a fragile sapling in the wilds of Hyarrostar.  Yet Anárion could not think of what else to do.  Isildur lay in a deathlike sleep.  The wounds he had taken when he saved Nimloth's doomed Fruit had not healed.  Even the athelas raised in their mother's own gardens had not helped.  Desperate, Anárion had returned to the grove, hoping to find some sign, some help, for his brother.  But the small buds pushing out of the new Tree's branches had not yet opened.  

The sap of Isildur's life wanes, even as the sap of life rises in this scion of Nimloth, Anárion thought sadly.   He looked to the distant stars and moon, the shining lights of Over-heaven.  "Do not sunder the Servant of the Moon from the Son of the Sun," he begged to whatever Valar might hear.  "Or, take me and spare my brother who risked all to save the line of Nimloth."

A light rain pattered down from the dark skies.  Sighing, Anárion curled his weary body around the sapling, gently gripping its slender trunk.  He slept deeply, dreaming of a strange white city jutting out of a mountain and a White Tree as fair as Nimloth blooming at the city's height.  

And when the sun rose out of the silver sea, Isildur stirred in his sickbed.  Slowly he opened his eyes, smiled upon his wife and mother.  Eyes and heart faraway, he said: "Anárion."

_ Listen _ ,  _ Anarion _ .   _ Breathe _ .   _ Move _ , said a rather merry female voice from the edge of dreams.  Anárion obeyed it, stretching out stiff legs and rubbing his eyes.  Then he blinked.  For there, on the little Tree, a new, moon-white leaf stood forth to greet the morning sun.

** *******  **


End file.
